Beading Design

Gestalt theory and Beading Design

You might have heard of Gestalt as a psychological theory rather than a theory of design, but the ideas behind Gestalt theory actually lend themselves quite well to thinking about design. The theory was set out by Max Wertheimer in 1924. In his speech, he said “There are wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole.”

In other words, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. That’s a great thing to remember when thinking about beading designs because you can carefully pick out beads that look great individually and come up with something completely different from what you envisioned when you put them all together. Other parts of Gestalt theory are helpful for designers to remember, as well.

Similarity, Proximity and Continuity

The principle of similarity shows that things that are similar in size, shape, texture or color will seem to belong together.

Likewise, objects that are close together (like two stands of beads on the same necklace) will be seen as belonging together.

Continuity describes the idea that people tend to see things as continuous wholes rather than separate parts. So if you were to use a cross in your design, for example, they eye would perceive it as two crossed lines instead of four lines that meet in the middle.

These concepts are helpful for the beading designer because they remind us that we can use a wide range of beads in a project if they are similar in some way (size, color, texture, etc.) and that multiple design elements will look more harmonious if placed in close proximity.

Color theory and beading design

Another important aspect of design for beaders is the use of color. Color theory attempts to explain how the eye perceives color and what is harmonious and not harmonious when it comes to color.

You probably know the basics: there are three primary colors (red, blue, yellow) that combine to make the secondary colors (purple, orange, green) and further blend into tertiary colors including yellow-orange, red-purple and blue-green, to name a few.

Colors opposite each other on the color wheel (think red and green) are said to be complementary. This kind of design will provide a lot of contrast but can be very beautiful (that’s why red and green are everywhere together at Christmas time).

Colors next to each other are called analogous colors, like blue-green, blue and blue-purple. Using these three colors together would give you a cool and sophisticated look for your beading project. Analogous colors are easy on the eyes and make your projects beautiful.

Hue, Saturation, Value

Of course there’s a lot more to color than the basics that appear on a color wheel. The other main things you need to know have to do with the way we see color.

Hue has to do with the way the color actually looks to our eye. Think about unripe fruit versus ripe fruit. A banana goes through a range from green-yellow to yellow to brown. All those different ways of describing the color indicate the hue.

Saturation refers to the amount of black, white or gray added to a pure color (more specifically, adding black makes a shade, adding white makes a tint and adding gray makes a tone). Value describes how light or dark a color is.

You can play with colors in many more ways than the color wheel suggests when you use beads that are all in the same value area, or that are all tints (pastels, for example), all pure colors or all similar hues.

Using theory in beading design

If you’re just starting to play with color and design, you might want to experiment with a bunch of beads of different colors, shapes and sizes and see if you can figure out which beads look best together.

Start by stringing a necklace made of beads that are all the same, such as seed beads of the same color. Then try making one that’s all the same color but different hues or values.

Then add a complementary color, or a color of the same saturation that’s not complementary. Be willing to experiment and make things you don’t like to learn the lessons of color theory and to understand what you like in a beading design.

Related resources

• A great place to learn about hue, saturation and value (as well as many other cool things about color and how we see) is The Tech. This is an interactive site, so poke around and learn.
• The Color Classroom has great online “classes” on how to make a color wheel, color theory and color selection for quilters and beaders.

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